


he says in the end you're dead, nothing can hurt you

by toujours_nigel



Series: girl!Boromir AU [3]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boromir Lives, Female Boromir, Multi, girl!Boromir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 08:25:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6110734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life in peace is hard for born soldiers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he says in the end you're dead, nothing can hurt you

“They’re at it again,” Berenel informed him when he emerged from the wardrobe trailing three pages in various states of anxiety. “Our uncle of Dol Amroth is doing what he might to calm them, but it will likely occupy the day and much of the next.”

“And you’ve come to tell me you have no patience for it and are off riding?”

“I have come to tell you that I am to have no part in it, with my woman’s mind and its little knowledge,” Berenel said, and lobbed an apple at him.

They grew apples in the restored gardens of Anorien, by the river, but they grew them too in the gardens of high-walled Gondor: smaller and the sweeter for it, a ruddy flesh beneath the crisp skin. He wiped the juice from his beard with the back of his hand and ignored the dismayed gasps of his pages and said, “Did anyone say it to your face?”

Berenel ignored him, and instead hollered, “You, boys! It’s a bright day, leave Elessar be and go riding. I will ask the horsemaster in the afternoon, and I know your names if the King does not.”

“They wouldn’t talk of it,” Aragorn said mildly after the boys had looked to him, then to Berenel again, and scampered as one from the room, leaving the doors to slam shut in their wake.

“No, but they’d tell their friends, and those friends would tell theirs, and soon our friends of the High Council would be raging and ranting about lack of discretion. It’s a friendly city, Minas Tirith, and they all long to have your friendship, Estel.”

“Estel? You _have_ been spending your days with Legolas. But truly, did anyone say to you that you ought not sit in council?”

“They value me in war, but in times of peace the cooler minds of men ought take precedence. They liked my father little, and think my brother likelier to pay heed to their fears.” Berenel shrugged elaborately and plucked a handful of grapes from the green mass residing beside the apples. “I cannot say that they are wrong.”

“And what have you come to warn me of?”

“Why, that my sweet sister of Rohan and I will be practicing sword-play in the high courts of the Queen’s Tower from the second hour till the fourth, and that we have had word spread all about the streets, from the craftsmen’s quarters to the palaces of the nobles, that all maidens who seek to learn might come to our bout. We thought of sending emissaries to all the provinces, but it might be best to limit ourselves at the start to the city.”

“You delight,” Aragorn said, “in tormenting me. Is it for sport or have you some other thought?”

“The Lady of Rivendell will soon set forth on her journey. It might be best could we present her with handmaidens and companions who might in need defend her. My father was not alone in thinking Gondor did well without a King. Her kin will bring her safe to you, but then she falls to our hands.”

“Arwen is no mean hunter herself,” Aragorn pointed out, smiling, waiting for an answering smile. It was the easiest way to Berenel’s heart often, to speak of valorous acts. “She led even the Nazgul a merry chase on the banks of the Baranduin with Frodo slowing her horse.”

But Berenel only said, grave as a statue of some Elf of the First Age, “It would be well, then, for her to have a company to captain, and to have companions who are sworn to her. She has my sword, and Éowyn’s, but neither of us can dwindle into becoming her guards. Éowyn must soon go to Ithilien and her cares in that princedom, and I would not do it, Estel, even for love of you.”

“I would not ask it of you for all love,” Aragorn promised. “What a task for the Warder of the High Tower, to wait at a door and beseech orders. But I thank you for this thought, and I would be a witness to your bout if I am permitted.”

 “Oh, we bear no grudge against men,” Berenel said, “and we could hardly grudge you such sport when Faramir has sworn already to be referee and to help us select the more promising of the girls who come to watch and to fight. I think,” she added, finally smiling in truth, “he fears his sister and wife will be most untender towards the failures of the unpracticed.”

 

* * *

 

“If she’s not careful she’ll end the day with a file of young girls clamouring for her attention,” he said to Faramir at the end of the fourth hour, when the court of the Queen's Tower had stopped ringing with the crash of sword on buckler. “Her arm has healed remarkably.”

“It would do much to heal her heart,” Faramir said. “She is too used to thinking of herself still as an untried soldier, and they are too used to Berenel not to crowd about one who will be kind.”

Yet Berenel too stood surrounded, by women her own age or older, hard-faced and lean, who reminded Aragorn not a little of his own kinswomen, who nodded at her words or spoke over her with animated gestures. Once, at a word from her, one turned to look at the pavilion where Faramir and Aragorn were seated, and it was as though the years had dropped away.

“It is a kindness in her to bring this into being,” he demurred, and suddenly struck, added, “and one nobody may set aside, for Finduilas the Fair had a company of women who guarded her against all but illness.”

“My mother died when I was yet a child,” Faramir said, “you knew her better than I.”

“Aye, I have the advantage of age there, and lo an aid to memory. Egleril!”

She turned again as he strode out from the pavilion and across the courtyard: among the oldest of the women gathered around Berenel and not the slowest, a matron of about sixty with a braid of dark hair wound about her head, and a robe of simple cut that parted to show the breeches worn underneath. She still had the grip of a soldier, and a voice to be heard across an echoing hall or riotous field of battle.

“Thorongil!” she said, and clasped him kinsman-close, her hands hard on his arms. “Why, commander, you haven’t changed a hair. How many years has it been since first we met? Finduilas was great with Berenel in those days, and I as young as these slips of things playing with swords. Now I ache with the rains, and Berenel is a hero, and you are as ever you were.”

“Men of Numenor age slowly,” he offered, “and my line slower yet.”

She looked at him again and then to Berenel and shook her head, and released him. “I am a fool,” she said, and laughed a little. “My King, I beg a thousand pardons of you. It is a rare thing for me, to meet one beside whom I have fought. Few remain in Minas Tirith of the goodly company that went about with Princess Finduilas, and of the men who were our companions the many wars have taken a goodly toll. I thought no further than recognition.”

 “I will not punish my friends for their long memories,” he said. “What think you of this undertaking of Berenel’s?”

“She is the one who spread the news,” Berenel remarked, and came up to wind her arm about Egleril’s waist and rest her head on her shoulder in a brief embrace. “We have done for this day. Egleril, you will see them disperse to their homes? I will send round word of those Éowyn and I think best fit for the task, and you will attend me on the morrow.”

She clapped her on the shoulder once in dismissal and wandered away to draw Éowyn from the crowd of girls surrounding her and exclaiming over her valour, met Faramir on his way to the same task and wound an arm through his. They were a matched pair, the children of Denethor, grey of eye like him, and alike in their height and grace and the fluid violence of them in battle, sturdy of heart and quick of hand.

When he turned back he saw Egleril watching them still, and smiled. “You have not answered me.”

“I have never met an Elf,” she replied, “and I know little of their lore beyond the great stories all children are taught. So I know not what your lady will make of them, a toy to amuse her, or an army to train, or infants to dismiss. But I have known Berenel since she came screaming into the world, and I have loved her well enough to know how well she loves a sword in her hand and a battle before her. You could not else have kept her in the City, but she would go ranging through the ruined towers of Minas Ithil and drive out the stench of Orcs from it. She is no princess to stay content in a tower.”

“I know it well,” he said. “I would fain speak with you, but I will not keep you from your work, or myself from my own. Come to me when next you come to do Berenel's bidding.”

 

* * *

 

Of the Council only Rivornor of Pelagir spoke well of the women daily engaged in swordplay about the courts of the Queen’s Tower. The Tower of Ecthelion was shielded from sight or sound of it, and none dared make displeasure known to the King they knew so little and who looked upon them full grim, for all his love of the Halflings that made so free of him in his scant hours of leisure.

Among the Fellowship it had become a thing of habit to wander to the Queen’s Tower and watch and offer words of support or encouragement, or, were Merry and Pippin the watchers, of jest and mild mockery. Though it had begun as work Berenel had taken unto herself in her loneliness, they were all too tangled with each other to leave it to her and to Éowyn. Legolas found himself all unwitting the first instructor, for he could not watch Berenel guide a girl about a horse-bow without offering comparisons with the archers of Mirkwood, who used much the same, and those of Rivendell and Lorien, who drew great bows the height of an Elf. Gimli fell next, in a demonstration of the advantage of short stature in battle, and Merry and Pippin followed suit, for Berenel drew them into her lessons and deemed them among her best students. Frodo, who liked war but little and still went in fear of Berenel, stole away to the library, and Sam to the walled gardens, but of the willing only Aragorn was held back by the great task of setting Gondor to rights, and Faramir with him. Though much had been done, yet much still remained, and the days of the Council were spent in both the great matters of princedoms and the small matters of farmers.

Yet he came one day in the sixth hour into the inner court of the King’s House to find Berenel and Faramir locked in battle and grinning fiercely with the joy of it. Their friends sat in the shadows of the arched pavilion, Éowyn still armoured for a bout and holding in her hands a roll of parchment upon which she was making tally marks next the names of the women they had taught. Amdirel, Fenil, Gervil, Gleweril, Hwestel, Ingeth, Maerel, Oreth, Ressil... it went on. Of the others Gimli, Merry, and Pippin were shouting indiscriminate encouragement, and Legolas, a little withdrawn, was watching with the stillness that made him a great archer even among his own people.

“They are well-matched,” he said to Éowyn, and she smiled up at him. “Have you fought thus with Éomer?”

“My skills are but late learned,” she answered, “and used only in dead earnest. I do not know if Éomer would have the heart to strike at me even in play. He has thought too long on the seeming corpse he found in the Fields of Pelennor beside our uncle’s. Yet this is a glorious sight.”

“A spectacle that must soon end, for Faramir is as like to disregard his wounds as his sister, and he was injured near to death. They are well-matched in this, too.”

“And in taking grief to their hearts and closing it in,” Éowyn said. “When she came first riding up to Meduseld, I had a child’s eyes, all uncaring for aught but my own troubles, and later I was so wrapped in them that it was only joy that struck me as strange. Yet Faramir and I have unwound sorrow each from the other, and now Berenel in her grief looks to me unlike her brother.”

“She took grievous hurt ere we ever came to Rohan, from Orcs and from the evil of the Ring, and she yet mourns the death of those nearest her heart, and has not found, as you did, any balm to her soul. I bear a Healer’s name with some reason, my lady, but I cannot cure sorrow.”

“I did not ask it of you,” Éowyn said simply.  “It is the fate of some women to dwell in grief. Perchance she has lost her chance of true joy, yet she grasps readily enough at such moments of it as she might find. To teach these girls has lightened her heart, and she might fare better yet once your lady comes to take her rightful place. It is no little thing, to be Captain of the Queen’s Guard.”

“Yet you would not do it,” he replied, and stood, striding out into the courtyard without looking back at her. “Faramir! Berenel! You must stop!”

 

* * *

 

“Duvainor,” Berenel said, “get out. And take Laegon with you. Go down to the kitchens and tell the cooks that I sent you, and then take whatever you’re given to the house of Egleril the Dancer in the fourth level. Be about your business.”

The boys went, and Boromir, turning, said, “Well, they’re ready, the girls, though I’ll send to Pelagir to ask Handes whether she will leave Rivornor’s house to run itself and come whip them into proper soldiers. I asked Egleril and she laughed at me. Someone ought to take them from me before I start using them for my own pleasure.”

“You’ve commanded armies since you were as old as Duvainor,” Aragorn observed. “You cannot keep throwing them out my chambers the moment you enter them.”

“They’re too used to being ordered around by me to think aught of it,” she said, dismissing the matter. “I have commanded Gondor’s armies; too grave a thing to waste on personal quests. But a few score young women trained to my own hand at a time of peace? I can think of any number of noble men and women who would be surprised to see their new servants turned rebellious, or creating trouble for them.”

“Would you do it, truly?”

“When I was eighteen and he thirteen, I once took Faramir into Lamedor, and we took service with Saelel the mother of Angbor. Angbor was young himself, and away from his city of Linhir. We stayed three months there before we were caught, and Saelel ever after was sweet to my father, and sent all her tributes and taxes in time. Do not tempt me, lest I turn young again and heedless.”

“You are young yet,” he said, full sincere. Forty-one was a stripling, even did one hold the weight of a people upon one’s shoulders. At forty-one he had been wandering the open plains of Harad, circling back from Rhun into Gondor.

“Not so young as that. My blood is thinner, and I shall age nearer to how the peasants age. My father in his marriage tried to remedy some of the flaws that the marriages of his forefathers had let creep in, but to no great avail.”

“You grieve him still,” he said. There was little question there. Faramir had started living again in the Steward’s House, but Berenel preferred to haunt the barracks, and empty apartments of the King’s House.

“I will grieve him all my life,” she said. “I remember him before the madness took him, and he was kinder to me than ever to Faramir, finding valour where he expected only weakness. But the great ill of it is that I forget his death, though I was there when they dragged his corpse from the fire, and took Faramir to the Halls of Healing. I sat by his body and smelled the stench of burnt flesh. His eyes were staring hollows, and his hand reaching out. Yet I forget, and every morning it beats on me anew. I rejoice in Faramir’s health, and that he has found a love to heal him, but it is not so for me. My grief has not grown light enough for songs.”

“I have not found you one for songs,” he said, and she laughed a little, as though it hurt her.

“Not for Mithrandir, and not for Theodred,” she agreed, “and not for my father who brought evil upon himself in trying to save Gondor. Yet Mithrandir has returned, and Rohan will prosper in Éomer’s hands, and Gondor in yours. I rest content.”

“Will you taste nothing of the joy spilling forth in Gondor now?”

“I have as much of joy as any soldier after a war. Yet. I long for work, for battles and deeds of valour. I am no Éowyn, who has fought her one battle and can set aside her sword. It is all I have ever known. Give me the Ethir Anduin and I will go fight the corsairs of Umbar for you, or give me the cape of Andrast that I might root out the Druedain and let Gondor settle Gondor’s lands. There is nothing for me here. My father is dead, my brother half a stranger in his new happiness, and my friends looking to life that I may have no part of.”

“Will you not serve me as my Steward?”

“As your general, any day, but neither training nor nature befits me for that work. You must look to Faramir, and your sons to his. I am too close to war to build at peace.”

“You will stay to see me wed,” he said, not making a question of it.

“Estel, with all my heart. I would not go before I’ve seen the girls safe in Arwen Undomiel’s hands, and Éowyn in Ithilien with my brother.”

“Have we done aught to make you unhappy,” he asked, and was sure he should not have, she looked so like Finduilas in that moment, sorrowing beautiful, and like his own mother Gilraen.

But she said only, “No, my King, unless it be that my mother’s blood calls me to the sea, and I shall not be joyous again till the salt waves smite me. And look how I grasp at that chance for happiness with both hands!”

He bethought himself as he had not in months, of the sickbed in Meduseld, of the wreckage of her womb and body, of her hands grasping at him, and said, “As you will have it, Lady of the White City.”

 

* * *

 

Handes of Pelagir sent them her daughter Iaril, a girl scant years older than Faramir with green eyes and hair like the gleam of sun on silver sand, who ran Berenel’s girls ragged till they could drill with the guards of the Citadel and match them beat for beat. Éowyn clung to her as to a sister lost in birth, and she to Egleril.

Berenel herself went less among the women and returned instead to her old haunts in the barracks and taverns frequented by soldiers. Sometimes she went with a grizzled captain or nervous young cadet to the map rooms, or down to the docks in Anórien to speak to sailors, and sometimes to the Houses of Learning to delve into the history of Andrast and know what Houses might lay claim to it.

To Aragorn she came not at all, and he found that he longed for her, and to know what led her so to spurn him, for with all others of the Fellowship she was as before, and even with Frodo had begun to knit friendship closer, now that she had put away swordplay and was preparing for battle in earnest. She taught Merry and Pippin archery, listened to Sam discourse on farming and Legolas on woodcraft, and followed Gimli with quill and parchment at the ready as he spoke of what soil would best bear what building. With Aragorn she was passing friendly, courteous as she might have been to any stranger. The invasion of his rooms stopped, and the appropriation of his pages.

All summer he worked at making the city and then all of Gondor grow to love him, not as a hero out of legend who had come suddenly upon them, but as their king in blood and mind who would rule them and serve them. Faramir sent a company of his Rangers riding North and West, to come upon Halbarad’s old Company and strengthen their numbers, and sent back men grown old in dogged battle and his kinswomen of the Dunedain with their children riding pillion who measured Iaril’s Women, as they had already come to be called, with a steady eye and drew short bows and long daggers from their packs.

While the city spoke and worked and laughed and drilled and built itself anew he went riding with Gandalf and brought back new life to grow in the court by the fountain, and laid the withered tree to rest in the fastness of Rath Dinen. Berenel and Faramir, attending upon him, went hand in hand into the silent street to stand at their mother’s tomb, and their father’s, and came up unspeaking. The White Tree grew, and flowered, and the fragrance filled the Citadel and brought people stumbling to it, so the court by the fountain was ever full of people, and his City that shone like a spire of pearl and silver became an elanor blossom instead, sweetly alive.

On the first night of full flowering, when word had reached him of Arwen in the Eastfold, he went with a jug of sweet red wine to Berenel’s chambers and was admitted. Iaril and Egleril, ensconced with maps between them, stared and withdrew, and Berenel laughed and shook her head and secured the door.

“It is well I have no reputation save as a soldier,” she said, and returned and rolled the maps tidily away. “To what joy of yours must I drink?”

“Arwen crossed into the Eastfold two days ago; riders from Rohan on their swiftest horses came with news of it this morning. In two weeks she will be in the Citadel and we will be wed.”

“I will drink to your joy,” she said, and suited action to word. “I thank you for the warning: there is much I must do, but in a month’s time I might be away. It is a good time, we might know as soon as we can how harsh life is at the mouths of the Anduin.”

“You are decided on your course?”

“I would rather brave corsairs than arrows dipped in poison,” she said, and drank deep, draining her cup. “I have fifty soldiers who will go with me, and more who will follow in a matter of weeks. It’ll be no easy task, but how less difficult than the work I had of it in the wild, finding Imladris.”

“It is better to set camp in milder weather, that you might be well-settled before the harshest months. I do not speak to dissuade you, but as one who has lived his life in the wild. You would not go into Harad in high summer, nor up in Caradhras in deep winter.”

“In need I would, and you also. Need drives me now. Since the age of nine I have been the Lady of Gondor, and before me Finduilas. When you wed it will be Arwen. I bid joy, but I cannot live in Minas Tirth and hear that name called and not answer to it. The dissenting lords will mark my face and mark my manner and in one month’s passing they will scream for rebellion. It is not the gift I would give you for your wedding.”

“To send you hurtling from the City with scarce a single company of men, will that sound sweeter?”

“A soldier hunting after glory, and a child of the last Ruling Steward driving out the enemies of Gondor in the first year of the king returned? Why, Estel, listen to yourself. Drink to my joy as I have drunk to yours.”

 

* * *

 

“I had not thought we lived in such a dusty city,” Legolas said, watching the clattering of servants scrubbing every hall in the Citadel. “Gimli was near suffocated in the clouds they raised in the Lane of Artificers.”

“Aye, that I was. They do good work there, for Men, but they’re not over careful of any not over six foot high. I tell you, master Hobbits, you had best not wander this day.”

“Nowhere but the kitchen,” Merry said.

Pippin added, “The cooks are running mad trying to think what to cook for the elves; they let us have a taste of everything!”

“It’s less than they do for Éowyn,” Legolas said, “Ithilien will need more than cleaning, it must be built anew. It was a good thing you did, to make Faramir Prince of Ithilien; it will ease much hurt in those who would not see their line of Stewards disregarded.”

“It would ease them more did I the same for Berenel. Shall I create her Prince of Anorien? They can be princes of sun and moon, across the river, holding up my ship of state. Numenor had ruling queens, and none may claim she would not be wise and splendid. Yet,” he added, his quick dream faltering, “the ruling queens of Numenor had children.”

“She might take an heir from her kin,” Legolas suggested, “but that would unite Ithilien and Anorien, or worse, Anorien and Dol Amroth. Any man who might rule them well might bring trouble to your successors, and so too any man who might rule them ill. “

“And the lass has her heart set on going,” Gimli said. “She keeps talking of having wanted to kill pirates since she was a wee child no higher than my knee.”

“Her mother’s people came from the Bay of Belfalas,” Aragorn said, and thought of the little girl he had dandled on his knee as Thorongil, and her delight in all stories. Imrahil had been young in those days, a dashing prince who fought in his father’s ships. He was only surprised she had not wanted to be a Corsair herself. “You are wise, my friends, wiser than I.”

“Our story’s done, lad,” Gimli offered. “You cannot keep the Company together by main force. But there is time yet to smoke a pipe with us before you go haring off on some fool errand,” he added, and suiting word to deed produced a pipe and a bulging pouch.

“Aye, that I can.” It was a relief to draw his cloak about himself and sit and smoke and smile lazily when Merry and Pippin set up cries of Strider! Strider’s troubles were easier than wrangling the Great Council of Gondor even in its first fragments, dealing as he had primarily in orcs. He needed, ah, he needed a ride, the open fields, the sky stretching to the distant horizon, to not be held in this stone city.

The plains of Anorien were dotted with farmhouses, heavy with crops. A quiet country, with the passing of war, if the farmers were over-young, or tremulous with age, or scarred or lacking in limbs, they were still alive, still tending their fields, and in Autumn there would be harvest enough to add to the stores in Minas Tirith even after feeding all mouths in Anorien, and if not the City could yet live on its stores some little while. He laughed over the stands of wheat steadily growing and urged Brego onwards, lying low on his back as they chased the horizon and the sun settling into the West. If he rode hard in two days he might himself come upon the Imladris contingent, behold Arwen after such months apart, hold her close and feel her arms enfold him, her mouth against his, the promise of home.

He rode back into Minas Tirith in full dark, urging Brego up the lamp-lit streets to the seventh level and the stables of the King’s House, as the city moved around him, secure in their indifference of the nobleman come pelting back at dusk. He wanted to cherish their indifference, foster it until it spread across Gondor and Arnor, that horsemen did not spell danger close by, that they need not take up swords and rakes and axes and cleavers and hold hard against attacking orcs or marauders, but could nod or shrug and return to work or leisure, thinking only how sweet it was to ride in peaceful fields.

 

* * *

He was wed on Midsummer’s Day, in the court by the fountain, with the blossoms of the white tree falling thick about them, and Arwen’s smile the brightest thing in a bright day. The silver trumpets sang her home, and in Merethrond the feasting went on all night and into the next day, for now truly the land had hope, in having a queen, and could look to its future.

With the Company Arwen had none of the gentle restraint that had already endeared her so to the people, but went into Legolas’ arms a squealing girl and teased Gimli and made much of Merry and Pippin and folded Éowyn into her affections as easy as though she had known the girl since she was a toddler in Meduseld and Berenel as though they had not been parted since he made them known to each other. Éomer looked to her as to a legend come to life, and Faramir with the open curiosity of a scholar encountering history. He would have to arrange for Faramir to meet Lord Elrond before the Imladris contingent departed. Soon, then, but not that night. For the present it was enough to look upon his people in their bright joy and rejoice in them.

“Most men would look frightened did their bride make such inroads on their friends,” Faramir said, suddenly at his elbow. “Berenel especially has a trick of storing up all one’s misdeeds until she can spill them to best advantage. Éowyn has been told of every fall I took as a child, and all my mishaps in first learning my way around a sword and a horse and a woman.”

“You have suffered greatly,” he agreed, and quieter, “if I could keep her here I would. She does not go on my orders.”

“No. Berenel must have a war or wither away. She never hoped for peace while she yet lived, and never learnt the art of it, or any peaceful pursuit. For love of me and of you she has this long lingered among us, and to see the city safe in the hands of the queen. My king, will you let me thank you for bringing her safe to me? Since she rode out of the city into the wild I had dread visions of what might befall her. Not swords only, as it might to any soldier, but some evil singling her out, hunting her into despair and the courage born of it: since we were children she has won much and ventured more and berated herself over every failure. To have her home, and safe, it is the greatest boon I might have wished for, and you gave it to me unasked.”

“We are a people unlike you, in the North, even unlike your Ithilien Rangers. Our deeds are many but they are not feted, and we have chosen oblivion above great repute. Our work is in the wild, away from the walls of great cities. We have learnt too well from Isildur to grasp at glory, and I was brought up among Elves, who have since the Second Age turned their faces from thoughts of power in Arda. Berenel was like a fire in a high place seen at night to me, Gondor’s beacon lit on Amon Anwar, proud even in great peril. She showed me, too, how Men might come back even from the edge of the precipice. She grasped at the Ring, and in her remorse fought to protect Merry and Pippin as a warg might to save its young. She fell to the black knives of the orcs and... but Faramir, this is not my story to tell.”

“I have been told it, in the Halls of Healing when my sister kept me company. She will fight for you till her deeds would take a month to tell over, and my children and theirs and theirs will remember her in songs of valour, Berenel Megilagor, the King’s swift sword. Long may her deeds live, and long may she live to do them.”

“Perchance Arwen might persuade her to stay a while longer. She grew adept with her brothers.”

“Perchance. Who would not wish to stay around the Evenstar and partake of her light? ’tis not often starlight comes to mortal souls. But come, Aragorn, we will not spend this night in such grave speech.”

 

* * *

 

In the high court of the Queen’s Tower Iaril’s women spun and presented arms and fought under the eye of their commander, while their rulers sat in the shaded pavilion and watched and praised them. Berenel and Éowyn, seated on either side of Arwen, pushed the credit of it each to the other and disclaimed it for themselves. The girls of Minas Tirith had been supplemented by women of the Northern Rangers, and by riders from Rohan who had come hunting their fortunes across the Eastfold in Arwen’s wake. Their blades shone in the bright light, and their shields gleamed as they engaged each other in bouts.

“They will not always be so formidable in appearance,” Berenel explained. “Most are to be your handmaidens and companions, but we thought it well that they could defend themselves and in need their queen.”

“It is splendid,” Arwen laughed. “The most perfect wedding gift. I thank you both. Have you any good hunting here?”

They traded glances across her, and Éowyn said, “You must ask Faramir, or even Iaril. Berenel and I hunt orcs when we hunt at all.”

“It is the favourite sport of my brothers. You must take me with you. We will leave Estel to his work and go our way. You will show me their lairs, that I might take my women hunting when you have gone.”

“I will remain bereft among my tax records and charts of irrigation,” Aragorn agreed. “But Berenel leaves in a matter of days, and hunting orcs is not so easy a matter as snaring rabbits.”

“We will wait for Berenel to return from Ethir Anduin, then. We will ride out and inspect the lay of the land and long for her return. Come Éowyn, you will make these women known to me, and commend Iaril to me especially. Berenel, you will attend to me tomorrow.”

Berenel pressed a fist to her heart, elf-fashion, and bowed over it. “In the first hour of the day, my queen, or at any hour you choose.”

“They’ve come along well,” Aragorn said presently, watching Iaril fetch out one woman, then another, and another, to show their swords to Arwen, and tell her what provinces they hailed from, and what they did in Minas Tirith. “It was a kind thought of yours, and will help her grow quicker accustomed to living among Men. One of the Mirkwood contingent will remain also, on Legolas’ bidding, to keep her company, though Mirkwood and Imladris share little and less in these dark days.”

“Will the elves of Mirkwood not sail the Sundering Seas to Valinor with their kin?”

“Many will. While Legolas himself remains not all his kin will forsake him. Yet Tauriel remains not for love of him, but some secret sorrow that binds her to Arda. She is welcome in Minas Tirith as many days as she chooses to remain. She is a warrior of fierce repute and a hunter of acclaim. They may go after orcs without you.”

Berenel nodded, essayed speech and caught herself back, ate an unthinking handful of cherries, and looked out onto the courtyard, where one girl—Gleweril by the hair and height of her—was matching swords cautiously with Arwen herself. Around them the other women had formed a loose ring, limiting their range, and were shouting encouragement and urging caution.

In the quiet of the pavilion, Aragorn said, “I had not thought to lose you first of all the Company. Such a road we have come, to the White City with the trumpets calling us home.”

“You might have lost me in the peaks of the Misty Mountains, or the deeps of Moria, or on Parth Galen, or in all the fields we have littered since with bodies. This is no such task as defeating darkness, Aragorn. I will fare well, and in months or a year I will ask you for settlers for Ethir Anduin. Ithilien will be settled then, a place of gardens, and I will live in my brother’s house across the river. I would stay,” she said, “for the love I bear you, but we are not soldiers together now as we were in Meduseld, and you cannot shoulder my grief of nights.”


End file.
